Sara Kendall is a Lecturer in International Law at the University of Kent, where she co-directs the Centre for Critical International Law. Her work draws upon insights from the humanities and interpretive social sciences to explore how claims to criminal accountability and practices of humanitarianism operate as forms of global governance. Her publications have focused on international criminal law, international criminal law, and state-building practices from a critical legal perspective.

Unsettling Redemption: The Ethics of Intrasubjectivity in The Act of Killing

Sara Kendall

Abstract

The documentary The Act of Killing adopts a novel experimental approach to mass atrocity. Perpetrators of Cold War era anti-communist purges in Indonesia are invited to narrate their acts through familiar film genres. The resulting narrative appears to fit within the ideology of transitional justice, with its emphasis on practices of healing, remorse and redemption. Yet the structural dimensions of violence remain unaddressed within this frame. The moral economy of affect and empathy displaces a political analysis of enduring power imbalances and ongoing injustice.